Legal scholar and 1Sambayan co-convenor Howard Calleja has called on the Senate to determine the required vote threshold for convicting Vice President Sara Z. Duterte based on the number of actively participating senator-judges, arguing that the standard should reflect those physically and legally capable of carrying out their judicial duties.
Calleja noted that the 1987 Constitution’s requirement for concurrence implies that a senator-judge must actively participate in the decision-making process.
He pointed out that constitutional provisions do not explicitly fix the benchmark at 16, nor do they specify that the base must automatically be calculated from the full 24-member Senate membership. Instead, he argued that the two-thirds calculation should apply to functioning members of the court.
“Hindi sinabing 16, hindi sinabing 24,” Calleja said.
Under current Senate impeachment rules, a minimum of 16 affirmative votes, representing two-thirds of the entire 24-member body, is required to convict the Vice President.
Calleja highlighted scenarios where senator-judges might be rendered unable to fulfill their functions, such as formal suspensions or extended stays abroad without returning to the jurisdiction.
“If there’s no coercive power for the Senate for you to return, hindi ka po mabibilang,” he explained.
He emphasized that ensuring only functional members are factored into the threshold directly links to basic constitutional guarantees.
“So, kasama po sa due process natin ang sinasabi natin fair trial,” he said.
However, Calleja made a distinction between senators legally or practically prevented from serving and those who merely fall ill or miss the final voting day. In the case of temporary absences or single-day illnesses, he maintained that those individuals should still be included in the total base count.
“I would count that as part of the members of the Senate,” Calleja said, clarifying that skipping the vote day does not automatically lower the total vote requirement.
He reiterated that the final requirement remains flexible depending on the structural capability of the court’s members to serve, “because it admits to the moving number of members of the Senate.”
The legal debate comes as former Supreme Court justices prepare to submit their legal opinions to the Senate Impeachment Court on September 16, 2026, ahead of scheduled oral arguments between the prosecution and defense teams on September 23.
Addressing the upcoming resource speakers, Calleja remarked that while their expert opinions will provide useful guidance, the final decision remains solely with the sitting senator-judges.
“The senator judges may accept it as a gospel truth or they may just put it aside as something another opinion,” he said.